Tianjin University Division of Medicine was officially established on April 14th, 2018. The division aims at promoting “healthy China” development and improving people’s health standards, follows the motto “leading with medicine, supporting with engineering, transforming through innovation, and clinical demonstration”, and combines advanced resources to construct a platform that integrates medicine, teaching and research.

Tianjin University Division of Medicine will form a multi-discipline, multi-level educational framework including educational institutions such as the Institute of Foundational Medicine, Clinical Medicine, Public Health, Biomedical Engineering, Medical Technology, Pharmacy, Life Sciences, and new research institutes like the Institute of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, the Institute of Disaster Medicine, and also clinical sites like affiliated hospitals and teaching hospitals. This will pave the way for new medical developments carrying TJU’s characteristics, so as to strengthen local and national comprehensive reform of new medical development in the education, science and technology sectors. 

More than one hundred distinguished guests attended the founding ceremony, including academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, Tianjin City leaders, Tianjin University leaders, and representatives from over 30 hospitals and research institutes. 

Tianjin University Division of Medicine is cultivating a new model to train talents from an open perspective. The center has invited Gu Xiaosong, of China’s Academy of Engineering, to be its director; it has set up the “Liu Ruihen” medical science experimental class to explore a new pattern leading from bachelor education to doctoral education, training top-level talents in both medicine and engineering; it is partnering with Tianjin Medical University to launch a new major--Intelligent Medical Engineering—the first of its kind in China, which will begin to recruit undergraduates from this year; it is also preparing to establish various new disciplines and majors, in order to cultivate talent from different directions. 

Li Jiajun, Tianjin University’s party committee secretary, gave a speech about Tianjin University’s past efforts and future plans regarding medicine construction. He pointed out that the Division of Medicine represents a milestone in the 123-year history of Tianjin University. “Technology development, the country’s demands and people’s needs call for innovation and reform of the medical training model and health care system”, he said. “Based on the country’s strategic development goal ‘Healthy China 2030’, and with the guiding thought ‘combining medicine with engineering’, Tianjin University’s Division of Medicine will improve the standard of Tianjin’s medical education as well as its health care, and contribute Tianjin University’s strength to the realization of the ‘China Dream’.”

Ming Dong, director of Tianjin University Medicine Construction Office, reported the medicine construction process of Tianjin University from four aspects including the background, history, future plans and key responsibilities. He said that Division of Medicine will lead the way in innovative medical research, talent training, first-class university construction and healthy China provision by forming a “Medicine plus X” cross-discipline union with other schools and departments of Tianjin University.

In the future, Tianjin University Division of Medicine will make joint efforts with other hospitals in Tianjin to develop “Tianjin’s sample hospital for smart health-care”, and to carry out new medical services mainly related to medical research and development, disease diagnosis and public health; at the same time, the center will focus on fundamental science and technology projects,, advance medicine’s merger with artificial intelligence and big data; furthermore, it will also work with China Electronics Corporation on the “National Health and Medicine Big Data Center”, to accelerate the amalgamation, sharing and industrial incubation of big data systems for healthcare. 

At the meeting, Gu Xiaosong was appointed director of Tianjin University Division of Medicine. He proposed that this decision enables Tianjin University to jump into a new era of medicine construction, and is in accordance with building a first-class university, top disciplines and promoting China’s new medical development. As the leading figure of the Division of Medicine, he promised to carefully perform his duties under the “leading with medicine, supporting with engineering, transforming through innovation, and clinical demonstration” code.

In the future, Tianjin University Division of Medicine will make joint efforts with other hospitals in Tianjin to develop “Tianjin’s sample hospital for smart health-care”, and to carry out new medical services mainly related to medical research and development, disease diagnosis and public health; at the same time, the center will focus on fundamental science and technology projects,, advance medicine’s merger with artificial intelligence and big data; furthermore, it will also work with China Electronics Corporation on the “National Health and Medicine Big Data Center”, to accelerate the amalgamation, sharing and industrial incubation of big data systems for healthcare. 

Tianjin University’s efforts in medicine construction have lasted for almost a century. Liu Ruihen, Founder of China’s Trauma Medicine and China’s modern public health affairs, graduated from here 100 years ago. In 1937, Li Shutian, the president of Tianjin University, had already conceived of building the School of Medicine and its research institutes. In 1978, the predecessor of Tianjin Medical University founded the earliest “Biomedical Engineering” major. In 2017, the Institute of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine and the Institute of Disaster Medicine were founded, and many top experts were attracted to Tianjin University. Last August, Tianjin University signed an agreement with Tianjin Medical University on deepening their overall strategic cooperation, building the School of Medical Science and Technology, and starting the first “artificial intelligence engineering” major, in order to explore a new educational pattern combining medicine and engineering and cultivating talents with innovative spirits. 

Meanwhile, a number of scientific breakthroughs have been achieved, including the development of a new process of penicillin crystallization, “Crafty Hands” minimally invasive surgery robot system, “Shengong” artificial neural robots which have flown to space along with the “Shenzhou” spaceship, and plenty of others. With core competence in science and engineering, and also strong scientific research ability in artificial intelligence, big data, Internet of Things and wearable devices, Tianjin University is able to integrate the upstream, the midstream and the downstream of the healthcare industry, and push the cross-discipline integration of medicine and engineering forward. 

By: Xu Lanzhi

Editors: Qin Mian and Keith Harrington